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Classic Paintings Cleverly Translated into Google Street View

Boulevard Poissonnire by Jean Braud (1849-1936)

You can spend hours virtually travelling through Google Street View. It's fascinating to get an up-close look at places you'd never see otherwise. If you've ever zoomed in on a city, you'll notice that it offers fantastic details of shops and people on the move. Writer James Lileks took this idea and used it to translate a couple of classic landscape paintings into Street View. He adds the quintessential icons like directional arrows to works by Jean Braud and Aelbert Cuyp.

By taking these traditionally-produced paintings and digitally enhancing them, Lileks changes their context. They are not only works from the past but are places that exist in the present time. Street View symbols mean that they are on a map, and suddenly they're of our world. It's a contemporary way to look an urban center and a rural landscape that are vastly different from the ones we know.


River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants by Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691).

James Lileks website and Tumblr
via [Neatorama]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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